Elevate your breakfast from a dull chore to an exciting meal with delicious mashed potato egg nests. We’re sharing a new inventive way to serve breakfast!
Why make a standard breakfast of just eggs and toast? At times coming up with new ways to reinvent the old standby’s makes meal time more exciting. Cereal doesn’t often cut it around here either. So when we found ourselves facing another pot of leftover mashed potato we decided to find a way to use it up.

Enter the leftover mashed potato baked eggs. They really hit the spot in the morning. The soft egg center is so decadent as it oozes out of the potato nest. They are so satisfying you don’t even need to bother with toast!
How to Make This Yummy Breakfast
Form the mashed potato nests on the parchment paper. The center of the bowl is home to the egg. Add some cheese or chives to the top of completed egg nests or perhaps both for a bit of added flavor. To assemble these nests is a bit messy. Frankly when we came up with this recipe we wondered how we were going to put it all together.
We tried using a spoon to shape the bowl. It was a messy and time consuming. Brainwave! Wash an egg and push it gently down on the center of your potato stack. It will create a divot that will cradle the egg when baking.


Brush your mashed potato bowls with melted butter to help brown and flavor. Baking these on parchment paper is going to save you big time when it’s time to cleanup. No one likes scrubbing pans with stuck on anything lest of all egg that’s managed to escape it’s nest.

The eggs need to bake for approximately 15 minutes with the mashed potatoes. It’s as important to heat your little potato bowls as it is to get those eggs cooked just right. So pay attention to the thickness of the walls of your tater bowls when making them.
Eggs when baked often appear glassy on top which is not to be confused with raw. Ahem.. we may have overcooked ours just a bit making that mistake.
Don’t worry an overcooked egg is still edible it just won’t have that MasterChef quality when presented.


While the eggs are baking you can sauté your onions until they are glassy. You won’t need to use much oil in the pan just enough to keep the onion from sticking while sautéing.


Use this time heat your cornmeal/peameal bacon. At this point you will want to slice the cornmeal bacon thinly as it will heat through faster and dry out as it tends to have a far bit of water in it. If you prefer you can dice the bacon into bits and heat it with the onion.

These baked eggs and mashed potato nests are a great way to have a very hearty breakfast and use up those mashed potatoes at the same time. In fact you may enjoy this breakfast recipe so much that you will just go ahead and make extra mashed taters the night before!
Your Questions Answered:
Can I make the same idea with a different mashed veg?
You certainly could. Just remember the taste of the vegetable should complement your egg. Also other vegetables may be denser fleshed and take longer to heat.
Do I have to top with cheese like you show?
Absolutely not. In fact I rather prefer mine just topped with a little parsley and chives.
What if I can’t find the peameal bacon?
You can make this with a side of regular bacon or even breakfast sausage. I just find that peameal bacon is often on sale making it a more economical choice.
I already added a ton of butter to my mashed potato. Do I still need to add more to the outside?
If your potatoes already a richly buttered you can certainly omit that step.

Leftover Mashed Potato Egg Nests For Breakfast
Equipment
- 1 baking sheet
- parchment paper
Ingredients
- 2 cups leftover mashed potatoes If you have more than that just make more nom nom.
- 4 eggs
- 2 Tbsp melted butter
- Optional: Shredded cheese
- Optional: Chives or green onions
Instructions
- Place parchment onto pan. Using scoop/spoon measure approx 1/2 cup for each potato mound. Hollow out a hole in center for eggs.
- Drop eggs into center of each potato bowl.
- Use melted butter to coat the outside of potato bowl to crisp it.
- Bake in hot oven 400°F for 15 mins.